


i bloom i glow

by dandrogynous



Series: self-made man [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Trans Boy Dan, Trans Character, honestly? projection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 04:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11821629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandrogynous/pseuds/dandrogynous
Summary: Dan has been in this office for four hours. He's had his blood pressure done and his paperwork filled out and his vaccinations stuck into his arms. His bloodwork was filed two weeks ago. The finish line is just there - he can see it when he closes his eyes.(Dan starts T)(a sequel toLet The Salt Drybut can be read alone if you feel like it)





	i bloom i glow

Sitting here stuck would be better, Dan thinks, if the walls weren't so oppressively beige.

Dan likes browns and golds. He can appreciate a nice earth tone. But this flat muddy shade is garbage. The whole room is garbage, frankly. The carpet is tangibly scratchy without Dan having even touched it, and there's muzak playing slightly too loudly to ignore. The knot of nerves in Dan’s stomach twists tighter with every too-smooth beat.

A door opens behind him. He sits up straighter in the overstuffed chair that he's claimed as his own.

“Jeanine?” a nurse says. A very small elderly woman in a maroon tracksuit makes her way slowly across the room. Dan sinks back into his chair and his head. His phone spins idly between his fingers - he would be texting Phil, normally, but there's literally no service in here. No 3G, no Giffgaff in the corner, not a single fucking bar. Just empty space until the clock in the centre, which reads 15:32.

Dan has been in this office for four hours. He's had his blood pressure done and his paperwork filled out and his vaccinations stuck into his arms. His bloodwork was filed two weeks ago. The finish line is just there - he can see it when he closes his eyes.

The door behind him opens again and the same nurse says, “Daniel?”

Dan’s heart leaps into his throat. He clutches his paper chemist’s bag and stands up.

Another boy, sitting across the room with his mum, stands up as well, both of them shooting Dan a weird look. Dan flushes hot and sits down. He stares at his hands.

“No, sorry, Howell,” the nurse says quickly, and cool relief washes over Dan like water. He stands back up and smiles awkwardly at the nurse, who smiles much less awkwardly back.

“You'll be with Aafia in room three,” he says, leading Dan through the door and into a hallway painted pale blue. The carpet is nicer here, and a dark, dignified grey. The muzak is gone. The air smells very clean. “I’m Richard, there's a buzzer on the chair if you need anything while you're waiting. She’s winding up a meeting but she shouldn't be too long.”

“Thanks very much,” Dan says, pitching his voice carefully low as Richard opens the door to an examination room.

“Not a problem, lad,” Richard replies. Kindly, but without being patronising - something that Dan is hyperaware of, these days. He sinks down onto one of two armed chairs. When he was a kid he always tried to sit in the doctor’s spinning one. He remembers his mum telling him off, but the nurses had never seemed to mind.

Ten minutes pass, then fifteen more. Dan reads back a few video topics that are sitting in his notes app, adds a few more. He runs out of ideas after what not to do on the bus. The bottom of his shoe taps rhythmically against the floor. If he stops bouncing his leg he’ll probably die of anxiety.

There's a knock at the door, and then a pause, and then the door opens. A dark-haired woman in mint green scrubs walks into the room.

“Hi, Daniel?” she says, and Dan nods. She smiles. “I'm Aafia. How are you today?”

The truth is, Dan has had a long morning. He's waited for hours and had to say his birth name more times today than he has in a year. But he smiles politely at her anyway, and reminds himself that he's almost done.

“I'm good, thanks,” he tells her. She smiles. Her teeth are very straight.

“Lovely. You've got all your syringes? And the medication?”

Dan lifts the paper bag from the chemist. Aafia smiles again, a benevolent hormone replacement therapy god.

“Okay! So take out one of each type of syringe, to start.”

The process of moving testosterone from the bottle to a syringe to his skin is easier than Dan expected. Aafia shows him how to tap air bubbles out of the solution and how to divide his leg up into thirds so he hits the right muscle every time. It hurts less than Dan expected, too - the needle is thin and the dose is low.

And it's in, and out, and he's done it. There's testosterone in his system. The realisation hits him squarely in the solar plexus and he laughs breathlessly, looking down at the syringe in his hand.

“Well done,” Aafia tells him. “That was easy, hm?”

“Yeah, actually,” Dan says. He smooths a plaster over the tiny prick mark on his thigh. Then he looks up. “Thank you so, so much.”

Aafia explains how to discard the needles, then sends him on his way with a few informational pamphlets and instructions to come back in three months. Dan leaves the blue hallway, and then the beige office, with a spring in his step. He hasn't felt this hopeful in years.

Even the bus journey home doesn't bother him. It's crowded and loud and he hardly notices. His headphones pour In Rainbows into his ears and he smiles down at his shoes.

Phil is in the lounge when Dan gets home, reading a book on the sofa, his glasses sliding down his nose. When Dan walks into the room his whole face lights up.

“You're home! That took ages, how did it go?”

Dan sets down the bag from the chemist on the dining table, then joins Phil on the couch. He curls up and hugs his legs and buries his face in his knees for a few seconds, suddenly overwhelmed by the day. Then he sighs happily and lifts his head, smiling wide.

“Fucking great,” he says, and Phil’s bright eyes go brighter. “Fucking brilliant, Phil, I did it myself and everything, it didn't even hurt! And I've got stuff for the next like four doses. God. It's happening.”

“It's happening,” Phil repeats. His smile is so sweet. He's as happy about this as Dan is, Dan thinks. Different kinds of happy, but the same amount of happy nonetheless. Dan leans forward and grabs Phil’s hand. Phil grins and brings the heel of Dan’s palm to his mouth, presses his lips to it in a smacking kiss.

“I'm so proud of you,” he says, and kisses Dan’s hand again. “You're amazing.”

“I know,” Dan says airily. He tosses his fringe and Phil rolls his eyes. That pleased smile is still stretched across his face, his tongue poking out a little on one side.

“How should we celebrate?” Phil asks, setting aside his book and pulling Dan over so he's laying with his shoulders across Phil’s lap and his head propped up on a throw pillow. Dan shifts so he's more comfortable, then waggles his eyebrows and leads Phil’s hand down to the waistband of his jeans. Phil snorts. “Well obviously, Dan, but do you want to do anything else first? The city is your clam.”

“The city is my clam?” Dan asks. Phil shrugs. Dan shakes his head. “It’s oyster, you dick. Let's go get fancy drinks somewhere tall, that's tradition. Ring your dad, be like hey I’m skint but my hot boyfriend is about to get even more hot so I need to buy him loads of champagne, please give me money.”

Phil rolls his eyes again and laughs. Dan is glad there's someone in the world so willing to put up with his shit.

“Skybar it is,” Phil says, leaning down to kiss Dan firmly. Dan keeps smiling through it, pushes his hand into Phil’s hair and tugs gently. He hopes Phil knows it's a silent thank you.

The way he keeps kissing makes Dan think he does know, probably. It also makes Dan think that the Skybar might have to wait.

“Bedroom?” he pants up into Phil’s mouth a few minutes later, and Phil laughs and shakes his head and then nods, moving back so Dan can sit up. His mouth is very red, his face flushed pink.

“You are terrible,” he tells Dan, who grins and clambers off the couch and waggles his eyebrows again.

“You love it,” he says, and leads Phil to his bedroom.

 

They don't make it to Skybar for another four hours - Dan insists on showering, and then Phil wants one too, and then Dan gets a call from his mum to recap the appointment. By the time they’re dressed and groomed and ready to go it's half past nine. They call a cab and sit pressed from hip to ankle in the backseat, Dan at the window and Phil’s head on his shoulder.

  
The waitress says _hello, gentlemen_ , when she seats them, and their drinks are strong and brightly coloured just the way they both like, and Manchester glitters and glows beneath them. Dan smiles at his drink and his boyfriend and the view. He knows it’ll take a while to see any real changes but he feels different anyway - brighter and stronger and much more real. Like the person he is and the person he wants to be are coming closer together, the outlines overlapping. The strange Venn Diagram of boy and man.

Phil lifts his glass, says, “cheers, Dan.” Their cups clink together and they both drink. Dan felt like the world was swirling before any alcohol at all.

He's spent the last four years dreaming of this. Aching for it, staring at the fixed point of it at his life's distant horizon. And now he's here. Now he's done it, and there are new horizons, and his chest feels full of light.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm dandrogynous on tumblr  
> title from "where this flower blooms" - tyler the creator


End file.
